Replacing a tankless in Landis
A tankless that has failed is not automatically a tankless that needs replacing. Heat exchangers commonly carry twelve to fifteen year cover while the rest of the unit carries around five, and the exchanger is the most common terminal failure. We run the serial and check the warranty before quoting you for a new unit, because the part is frequently covered even when the labour is not.
Where a replacement is genuinely warranted, the second unit is usually a much simpler job than the first was: the gas line, the venting and the condensate route already exist and were sized once. In Landis the permit goes through Rowan County Building Inspections, and a like-for-like swap in the same location is a considerably lighter permit question than the original conversion was.
Landis was incorporated in 1901 and built around textile milling, and the housing that came with the mills is still the backbone of the town. Small, older, owner-occupied houses with small utility spaces, surrounded by later building. Most water heater calls here are on their second or third tank, and the constraint is usually physical rather than financial: what will actually fit in the space, and what the existing wiring or gas line will carry.
What Landis itself changes
Where the heaters sit
Utility room, closet and crawlspace in the mill-era stock, garage in the newer streets. We ask about the route in as well as the space itself, because in these houses the two are rarely the same problem.
The pipe era
Old enough that galvanised supply is a live possibility. If your hot and cold are both weak, that is the supply line, and replacing the heater will not change it.